


In Black Ink

by LydianNode



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Brian Needs a Hug, Friendship, Gen, Mild Language, Platonic Frian, Platonic Maycury, band brothers, mention of serious illness in the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 19:12:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18414119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydianNode/pseuds/LydianNode
Summary: Brian doesn't see himself the way Freddie sees him.Of course Freddie hadn't bothered to draw him. Who would? He lacked John's intense pensiveness and he certainly had none of Roger's careless beauty. He was just scrawny, fuzzy-haired, big-nosed Brian, not worth the pencil lead it would take to put him to paper.





	In Black Ink

October, 1975

  

Freddie's flat was, as always, a flurry of artistic chaos. Brian picked his way carefully through a mass of cushions, peacock feathers, swaths of velvet that might have been either clothing or discarded slipcovers, and other bits of shabbily luxurious flotsam and jetsam. "Is there anywhere to actually SIT, Freddie?" he called out. 

"Wherever you can find a few inches, darling," Freddie responded from the bedroom. "I'm just changing, I'll be out in a few. Make yourself comfortable." 

That didn't seem particularly likely. Groaning a little, Brian folded his legs under himself so he could sit on the tallest available surface, which might or might not have been a beanbag chair covered with a faux leopard throw. Whatever it was, it was just enough to support his weight if he didn't do anything as strenuous as leaning backwards. 

Art supplies were cast about in all directions on the low table at his side. Brian caught a glimpse of a stack of drawing papers. "Is it all right if I look at your pictures?" 

"Of course, just don't drag them together too much. Some of them don't have fixative, yet." 

Carefully separating each sheet from the larger sheaf, Brian started at the top of the pile. John's expressive face came alive in pencil and charcoal, lovingly smudged by the edges of Freddie's fingers. The cloudy-day eyes sparkled with white flecks here and there, and his smiling mouth was gentle. The next few drawings were also of John: blissed-out concentration as he played his bass, reading a book on the tour bus, gazing out of a hotel room window with a cigarette between his fingers. The last one of the group, so beautiful that Brian almost forgot to breathe, was of John cradling his newborn son in his arms. 

Brian set those aside and picked up the rest of the stack and found Roger. Where John had been drawn in black and white, Roger was in full colour. Brian recognized the medium as oil pastels, the vivid tints perfect for Roger's lively face. He'd been drawn with dashing strokes of peaches and ivories for his skin with a touch of rose for the lips, ceruleans and sapphires for his eyes, and a range of bright to burnished gold for his hair. One drawing of Roger bandaging his drum-wounded hands was smeared with vermilion. Another showed him asleep, splayed out on a sofa, his mostly-nude body casually on display with its gracefully arched back and sleekly muscled arms. 

Brian felt a curious frisson of pride that Freddie could draw so exceptionally well. He wondered how Freddie had depicted him. Flushing slightly with anticipation, he flipped through the remaining leaves of paper but found only a few rough sketches of the cats. 

Of course, Brian thought as he placed the artwork back on the table. Of course Freddie hadn't bothered to draw him. Who would? He lacked John's intense pensiveness and he certainly had none of Roger's careless beauty. He was just scrawny, fuzzy-haired, big-nosed Brian, not worth the pencil lead it would take to put him to paper. 

"Sorry, darling, that took far longer than I expected," Freddie said as he wandered back through the sitting room. "Roger was here yesterday and I think he purloined my favourite jacket again, so I had to find something else to put on." 

Freddie was dressed all in black, his nails freshly lacquered and his eyes rimmed skillfully with eyeliner. He looked like a creature from a faraway island, some sort of supernatural, ethereal being. He tipped his head to one side and gazed at Brian with a concerned expression in his dark eyes. "Brian, what on earth's the matter?" he asked, swooping down to kneel by his side. 

Brian felt as ridiculous as he looked, so upset over nothing, bothering his friend with his childish narcissism. "What? Oh, sorry, got lost in thought." The smile he gave Freddie was tight, fooling neither of them, so he turned around and gestured toward the drawings on the table. "Those are really outstanding, Freddie. The one of John with Robert is incredibly touching." 

"Oh, that," Freddie said airily, as if composing such a vision were a mere trifle. "I want to clean it up a bit and give it to Ronnie. And there's one of Roger that I want to give his mum for Christmas." 

"They're great subjects. Anyone would want to draw them," Brian agreed. The words were soured by jealousy, pouring acid into his mouth and making him even angrier with himself for his vain pettiness. He kept his head lowered, grateful for the ton of hair that gave him a modicum of privacy. 

He could almost sense the shift in the air before Freddie placed a hand on his arm. Freddie tugged lightly at him. "You've found Rog and Deacy—don't you want to know where you are?" 

"Presumably nowhere," Brian mumbled. "In a bin, with all the other rubbish?" 

With a shocked gasp, Freddie pulled more forcefully until Brian turned around to face him. "You can't mean that! Oh, no, darling, you're not in a bin, not ever. You're in here." He rose gracefully and reached behind Brian for a black leather folio. When he handed it to Brian, there was a hint of colour on his cheeks. "This is how I see you." 

Freddie crouched in front of him and peered up at him with those soft, gentle eyes. How did those eyes see him? Brian wondered. What hideous cartoons might Freddie have made of him? Perhaps he'd been captured during a studio argument, looking like an irritable emu. He might be drawn as a cadaverous spirit guitarist. _Día de los muertos._ Or just himself, skinny and plain, frowning and dishwater-dull. 

"It won't bite," Freddie encouraged. 

There was no way out. Brian opened the folio and found dozens upon dozens of pages. For several seconds he couldn't bring himself to actually look at any of them; the sheer number was overwhelming. He wanted to know and yet didn't want to know, and he felt his eyebrows rising as he looked at Freddie. 

"Start with this one." Freddie plucked one page out of the stack. It was a pen-and-ink sketch of Brian leaning over his guitar to change a string. Every crease of his lips, every shadow beneath his cheekbones, every tendril of his curls, everything was there on the paper, so intense and real that Brian took in a sharp breath. 

"That's how you see me?" 

"Of course, darling. What did you expect?" 

Brian shook his head, blinking in confusion. He gestured along the length of his body and up to his face. "I don't know. That's not what I see when I look in a mirror." 

"Mirrors are ghastly. They LIE; you absolutely can't trust them." Freddie plucked another page and held it up. "Try this." 

It was another ink drawing, this time a close-up in his black stage shirt with the silver necklace. He was facing forward, lips parted as if to speak, eyes shimmering. "I'm not...I don't..." 

Freddie spread out several more drawings: Brian putting film in his camera, sitting behind Roger's kit with a bewildered grin, dangling a piece of string in front of Jerry. The images were still but yet somehow in motion. Then, with a shy smile, Freddie showed him a full-length drawing of Brian changing clothes at a gig, his back to the viewer, long arms holding up his satin shirt as if he were about to drop it over his head. His skin, taut over long, elegant muscles, looked like flawless silk. 

How could that be? Brian had good eyesight, could catch glimpses of himself in mirrors, could see newspaper photographs. He shook his head and handed the drawing back to Freddie. "You're too nice, Fred," he murmured. "That's...that's not me." 

"Who else in Queen is six-foot-something with black curls, and plays guitar?" Freddie's words were playful but his eyes were serious. "Darling, this IS you. Look at this one." 

Brian saw a version of himself in one of the Mick Rock half-nude photos, gazing just to the left of the camera. Freddie had carefully replicated each individual curl of his hair and had made his pupils hazel with some kind of watercolour wash. "That's makeup," he commented. "And hairspray. And Mick's filters." 

"Oh, for fuck's SAKE!" Freddie flipped through the folio until he found a particular drawing. "No makeup here, darling. In fact, you hadn't bathed in three days." He shoved the paper into Brian's hand and he nearly dropped it when he saw the subject. 

He was lying in a hospital bed, asleep or unconscious, his right arm swathed in bandages. Freddie had drawn him in unflinching detail, sparing neither the sunken eyes and too-sharp cheekbones nor the mop of matted hair on the pillow. There were pained lines around his mouth, but even so there was also something noble and beautiful about him. He didn't need to ask when this was done, even though he had no firm memories of that time. "I was a mess," he said slowly. "Why'd you draw me like that?" 

"Truthfully?" Freddie asked, and Brian nodded at him. "We weren't sure you'd make it through the night, and I wanted your parents to have...something, in case they couldn't get back in time. A photograph would have been too blunt. So I drew you." The breath he took was shaky. "I drew this that night, too." 

Brian looked at the next drawing, of a pair of hands, one with much longer fingers than the other. He assumed it was his own. "Whose is that?" he asked, pointing at the hand he couldn't quite recognise. 

Freddie's reply shocked him. "Roger's." He took another deep breath. "We had to peel him off of you when they came to take you to surgery." 

None of that sounded familiar, but in truth he could scarcely remember anything about that night other than pain and fear. He could see tension in the muscles of Roger's hand, and the laxness of his own hand in his friend's grasp. "They look real," he said. 

"So, do you trust me when I say that I got your face exactly right?" crowed Freddie with a cocky smile. "Brian, dear, look into that mirror to your right and tell me what you see." 

He caught a glimpse of himself looking bemused. "What do I see? Legs out of proportion to the torso, nose too long for the face. My shoulders are way too narrow, and the hair's not helping because it makes my head look small. Concave chest. Mouth too close to the nose. Nose is too long and bumpy." 

Freddie's exasperated groan almost made him laugh. "I told you that mirrors are dreadful liars! All right, so Praxiteles might not have carved you as Apollo. But my GOD, darling, you are a delicious Beardsley engraving come to life, or a Pre-Raphaelite lover, and you are a beautiful thing." 

Brian remembered the rest of the Rock photoshoot as if the pictures were in front of his face: John, shy yet luminous; Roger, fine-featured and perfect. Both of them were so much handsomer than he could ever be. And Freddie, their Faery King, with his striking bone structure and mischievous, sweet eyes—how could Brian possibly compare to him? 

He sighed. 

"You're lost inside your own head again," Freddie told him, running a finger along the underside of his jaw until he lifted his head. "Where'd you go?" 

Shrugging, Brian tried to turn his face away but Freddie's feather-light touch held him in place. He had no choice but to meet his gaze, to accept his affection as the gift it was, to see himself as Freddie saw him. "I'm back, now," he whispered, his smile finally genuine. 

The flash of understanding between them was blissful. Freddie, beaming with his victory over Brian's self-deprecation, leaned against him like a contented cat. "You just wait until our next tour. I'm going to tell Zandra to dress you up in silks and satins and velvets like a Renaissance prince." 

A year ago—hell, twenty minutes ago—Brian would have told Freddie off in no uncertain terms for such a ridiculous idea. But now, after seeing himself in black ink, in Freddie's artistic regard, he simply asked, "Why don't you draw me a picture?" 

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Shakespeare's Sonnet 65:  
> O fearful meditation! where, alack,  
> Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?  
> Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?  
> Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?  
> O, none, unless this miracle have might,  
> That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
> 
> ***
> 
> I have a tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lydiannode - come talk to me!  
> Come say hi on my Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lydiannode


End file.
